Re: The consequential costs of a foolish or sloppy act

Posted by JimGnitecki On 2008/7/13 21:38:27

HH56: You are very sharp.

First, yes, the radiator was repaired and rejuvenated in August of 2007 while owned by the previous owner - i.e. 11 months ago. I know this from the excellent provenance that came with the car.

In addition, I checked that new cap, and found that underneath it, within the radiator "spout", there is a machined spacer. Evidently, the purpose of that machined spacer is to enable use of the shorter more modern radiator pressure caps in the Packard radiator. Either the prior owner, or someone before him, had installed that spacer, which by the way, is completely removable, thus enabling use of EITHER the longer Packard cap or the shorter modern cap.

I wonder if the car had been running that 16 psi cap since that radiator overhaul 11 months ago.

TurboPackMan: I don't regard this process as "finding the weak points". ANY system run at over twice its intended pressure is going to fail somewhere. At 7 psi, it might have been, and probably would have been, just fine. This is like pumping up a tire rated for 40 psi to 90 psi and then saying we "found the weak point" when it blows. That's not a valid test of the tire's integrity.

Jim G